


Prevail

by Hatterized



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternating Timelines, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Racism/Islamophobia, Memories, loss of a child, no zombie AU, some descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hatterized/pseuds/Hatterized
Summary: It's snowing in Atlanta, and Rick Grimes finds himself wandering through the park.





	Prevail

**Author's Note:**

> A quick thing I couldn't get out of my head. There's some implied racism/Islamophobia directed toward Siddiq (not from Rick or Carl) so just a heads up.

It’s snowing in Atlanta.

A week ago, a day ago, _hell_ , even just a few hours ago, Rick would have counted it as nothing less than a miracle. He would have laughed because the weatherman on Channel 2 said that they were in for a week of warm-for-the-winter weather in the low fifties with scattered rainshowers, and he would have donned his winter coat and driven to the gas station on the corner to get milk and bread and poptarts and hot cocoa mix. He would have bundled Carl and Judith up in layers of mittens and scarves and tromped outside like he was in the apocalypse instead of a whole one inch of snow, and he would have spent an hour helping them make a tiny, twig-and-leaf-filled snowman that was more Georgia-clay orange than snowy white. They would have come inside after, dripping through the house and shedding damp layers on the laundry room floor. He would have lit up the fireplace, Carl would have microwaved them some milk so they could stir in the cocoa mix, and they would have huddled around the mantle listening to the crackle of log and flame.

Instead, he’s outside, in the cold, alone. He’s wearing his winter coat unzipped over his uniform- still in his uniform, because he came straight from work, sirens blaring so he could fly up I-75 at ninety miles an hour. The sheriff, he decided, would just have to forgive him.

He’s searching even though it’s dark, the sun long since set over the skyline. There’s still lights on in Centennial Olympic Park, though. The fountains have been shut off due to the freeze, the crystal-clear water filled with fractured ice floes, but the lights stay on to guide his feet.

He remembers being here just over twenty years ago at the fresh-faced age of twenty-two, Lori by his side and Carl in his stroller, only eight months old and clutching his favorite toy, a blue plush dog named Pup-Pup that Lori’s mother had given them at the hospital the day Carl was born. They hadn’t actually gone to the Olympics, of course- they were just barely scraping by at that point, saving to buy a house and get out of their shitty two-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of the city. Lori had wanted Carl to grow up with a backyard to play in, with a swing-set and trees to climb and sprinklers to run through in the heat of summer, and Rick had loved her for it.

So no, they hadn’t seen the summer Olympics except on the ten-inch tv that they’d crowded around in the living room so they could cheer for Team USA. But they had, like so many other people in the summer of 1996, bought a commemorative brick in Centennial Olympic Park with their names and Carl’s engraved on it, a personalized sliver to stamp them as “ _we were here_ ” in a moment of history.

There are a lot of fucking names stamped into the footpaths that Rick walks.

**\---**

Rick hasn’t heard a single goddamned thing since the phone call. Not his coworker’s questions, not the sirens on his own squad car, not the nurses and secretaries staff asking him who he was here to see, not his own voice as he’d sobbed out, “my son, my son-”

The first thing he hears is a man’s voice. A wrecked, thickly tearful, unfamiliar voice that is calling his name as he flies down the hall.

“Mister- _Mister Grimes!_ ”

The man is in front of him without warning, sorrow on his face and in his soulful brown eyes that look completely shattered. His black hair sticks to his forehead, one eye grotesquely swollen shut and turning a violent shade of deep violet, his lip split and his warm brown skin bears a rainbow of dark bruises. He’s more purple and blood-red than anything, and Rick can hear him, because he’s saying his name, saying _Carl’s_ name, saying, over and over again, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry-”

**\---**

Rick wonders if his face should be cold. It just feels strange now, foreign, like the rest of his body, limbs unattached and moving like a marionette’s. He’s on a string, moving along with a singular purpose.

There are numbers, letters, that tell where each name is. He could have looked it up, could have narrowed his search, but he didn’t. He’s not sure where his phone is, anyway.

**\---**

Rick hasn’t been to Grady Memorial since Carl was born. That was a good day then a bad day then a good day all over again. He still remembers it, how Lori had been in labor for hours, her dark hair matted with sweat and stress, how she’d held his hand all the way through it.

He remembers how fucking terrified he’d been when the midwife had said “something’s wrong”. Remembers Lori’s panic, his own, as they’d rushed her down the hall for an emergency C-section. They’d let him stay in the room, reassured him that, “this happens sometimes, your wife is in good hands, here, put these on if you want to stay,” pushing blue-gray scrubs into his hands.

He had stood with Lori, her hand between his own, their fingers laced tight. He’d been crying beneath the mask covering his face, tears dripping, but Lori- brave, strong, ferocious Lori, had breathed through it, had calmed her breaths like the doctors told her to, nodded when they asked her if she was numb _here, here, there…_

Rick had heard every little sound as they’d cut her open and pulled Carl out, and he’d watched Lori, breathing slow and steady through it all, and thought, _my wife is so fucking strong._

They’d both cried- happy cried- when Carl had been delivered into their arms, goo-covered and red and screaming his head off.

“He looks like you,” Lori had proclaimed with motherly pride, delirious from painkillers and completely gone on exhaustion, and Rick had laughed so hard that he’d ended up crying even more.

**\---**

There’s no telling how long Rick’s been out in the cold, snow collecting in his hair and beard. He passes another block of names, searching, searching…and nothing.

He keeps going.

**\---**

“Do you need blood?” he keeps asking, terrified when the nurses shake their head no, guide him to sit down in a hard, uncomfortable chair. “He’s A positive, so am I. I can help, I can-”

 _No, no, no_ , they tell him.

It’s too late for that, he comes to realize. No point in giving a transfusion to a corpse.

“Mr. Grimes,” the man says again, sitting beside him. He sounds broken, and Rick doesn’t understand why he’s here. “Your son is the bravest man I’ve ever had the fortune of meeting.”

The man introduces himself as Siddiq. Tells Rick what happened.

“I was walking. Just- just _walking_ ,” he's angry, horrified, hurt. Resigned, because this is his life, how he has to live. “I live just off Piedmont. Walked home from work a hundred times. I get dirty looks sometimes. People shout things. Call me a terrorist, a monster, tell me to go back where I came from. I expect that." Rick thinks, _why should he have to?_   "Today…there were two men. Big. They followed me. Cornered me. I was right across the street from a cop car, and I thought- _they wouldn’t, not here_.” The man grits his teeth. “I was wrong. They did. The cop- he sat there, in his car, while I screamed for him to help.”

It’s men like that that make Rick ashamed to be a cop, make him vow to be better.

“He didn’t help. Your son- Carl? He did. I told him to run. Told him- told him they had a gun, to go get the cop. I thought maybe the man would care if it was him. He did. But it was- it was after…”

Rick can’t breathe, wonders if he’s been breathing at all.

“Your son tried to pull them off me. Fought them with me. Pretty sure he broke one of their legs. He just- they had a gun.”

Rick’s on the floor, curled into himself because the room is closing in on him and it _hurts_.

“It hit him- right in the side-”

“No more,” Rick gasps out, tears leaking. “No more.”

**\---**

Rick finds their names surrounded by a dusting of powdery snow. Their brick is right beside a bench, also white with frost, but Rick can’t bring himself to be that far away. He sits on the ground, stares at the names etched there, clears away the snow with numb fingers as he traces the letters over and over again. _Lori, Rick, and Carl Grimes._

How cruel is it that he’s the only one left?

**Author's Note:**

> It actually snowed in Atlanta today, so...perfect timing?


End file.
